Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris (56 page)

  1
“doctoress Iriane”
Anonymous letter, March 26, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° I.

  2
masseuse
AN, 334 AP 65, 4354–4355.

  3
close friend
Louise Nicholas, Report, April 26, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° I.

  4
Welsing had little to say
Herbert Welsing,
Audition
, April 26, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° I.

  5
It was about March 20
Fernande Goux,
Audition
, in Report, April 26, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° I.

  6
On April 12
List, April 12, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

  7
His wife, Marie, feared
Marie Lombard,
Audition
, March 27, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

  8
But police soon learned
Report, May 1, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° I.

  9
A number of invoices
Report, May 6, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° II.

10
The list of probable victims
Report, May 10, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

11
“the most difficult and complicated”
Stephen E. Ambrose,
Eisenhower: Soldier and President
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 142; Winston S. Churchill,
The Second World War
(New York: Bantam Books, 1962), Volume V, 499–512, 528–544.

12
He introduced himself
Charles Rolland,
Audition
, June 24, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

13
It was in Marseille
Ibid.

14
“He seemed in a”
Ibid.

15
later criticized
Massu discusses it briefly in
L’enquête Petiot: La plus grande affaire criminelle du siècle
(Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1959), 241–242.

16
“The Greatest Bluebeard” New York Times
, July 26, 1944.

17
Three weeks later Washington Post
, August 17, 1944.

  1
“told me that”
Georges Suard,
Audition
, October 9, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° VI.

  2
de Brinon would ever
Count Fernand de Brinon,
Audition
, October 20, 1945, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° VI, and again in the report of December 1945, in APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° VI. See also
Le Pays
, March 13, 1946, for another speculation about his intervention. Brinon passes over the spring of 1944 quickly in his
Mémoires
(Paris: La Page Internationale, 1949).

  3
“vain flight”
United Press, April 21, 1944;
Le Petit Parisien
, April 21, 1944;
Le Cri du Peuple
, April 24, 1944.

  4
But Massu was not
Jean-François Dominique makes this point well in
L’affaire Petiot: médecin, marron, gestapiste, guillotinée pour au moins vingt-sept assassinats
(Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 1980), 110. See also AN, 334 AP 65, 3368.

  5
four thousand tons
Omar N. Bradley,
A Soldier’s Story
(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1951), 386–387.

  6
“the key to France”
Anthony Beevor and Artemis Cooper,
Paris After the Liberation 1944–1949
(New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 36.

  7
De Gaulle wanted
Charles de Gaulle,
The Complete War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle
(New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers Inc., 1998), 631–632.

  8
“Paris must not”
Larry Collins with Dominique Lapierre,
Is Paris Burning?
(New York: Pocket Books, Inc., 1966), unpaginated introduction; Samuel W. Mitcham Jr.,
Retreat to the Reich: The German Defeat in France, 1944
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000), 189.

  9
The French police rebelled
C. Angeli and P. Gillet,
La police dans la politique (1944–1954)(
Paris: Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1967), 57–74.

10
Under the leadership
Marcel Le Clère describes the role of the guardians of peace in particular in
Histoire de la police
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1947), 124–125.

11
The pilot believed
Gregor Dallas,
1945: The War That Never Ended
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 179; Charles de Gaulle’s version,
The Complete War Memoirs
, 634–635.

12
“To this city”
Collins,
Is Paris Burning?
, 30.

13
“sparkling torpedoes”
Beevor and Cooper,
Paris After the Liberation 1944–1949
, 34.

14
“purple-faced generals”
Ibid.

15
“crossroads of death”
Willis Thornton,
The Liberation of Paris
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), 167.

16
With forces estimated
Beavor and Cooper,
Paris After the Liberation 1944–1949
, 33.

17
Grand Palais
Edmond Dubois,
Paris sans lumière
(Lausanne: Payot, 1946), 208.

18
“roped to the turret”
Collins with Lapierre,
Is Paris Burning?
, 175.

19
“Tous Aux Barricades” Comité parisien de Libération, Albert Ouzoulias (Colonel André),
Les Batillons de la jeunesse: le colonel Fabien et d’autres jeunes dans la résistance, dans les maquis et l’insurrection parisienne
(Paris: Éditions Sociales, 1967), 439–440.

20
“What the hell, Brad” … “Is Paris burning?”
Collins with Lapierre,
Is Paris Burning?
, 203, 220, 221, 302.

21
“olive drab jeeps”
Flint Whitlock,
The Rock of Anzio: From Sicily to Dachau: A History of the U.S. 45th Infantry Division
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1998), 398.

22
“The greatness of man” … “The night of truth,” Combat
, August 25, 1944, printed with a slightly different translation in
Camus at Combat: Writing 1944–1947
. Jacqueline Lévi-Valensi Trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 18.

23
“Paris,” he shouted
Gregor Dallas,
1945
, 21; De Gaulle later described it as an “improvised reply,”
The Complete War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle
, 649–650.

24
“I was drunk”
Gilles Perrault and Pierre Azéma,
Paris Under the Occupation
(New York: The Vendome Press, 1989), 56.

25
“the loveliest, brightest”
Collins and Lapierre,
Is Paris Burning?
, 322.

  1
“provisionally released” Réquisitoire définitif
, December 31, 1945, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° VII.

  2
Massu, a firm believer
Georges Massu,
Aveux Quai des Orfèvres. Souvenirs du Commissaire Massu
(Paris: La Tour Pointue, undated/1951), 151.

  3
“I was almost arrested” … “P.S. Destroy”
Marguerite Braunberger to juge d’instruction, September 6, 1944, printed in Jacques Perry and Jane Chabert,
L’affaire Petiot
(Paris: Gallimard, 1957), 62–63; AN 334, AP 65, 3378.

  4
“ma chère amie”
Ibid.

  5
“Ma chère Maggi”
Ibid; Marguerite Braunberger,
Audition
, December 4, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

  6
“a baptism or first communion”
Ibid.

  7
“either a genius or a madman”
Raymond Vallée,
Audition
, December 5, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

  8
“I’m going to give” … anything else, other than
Marguerite Braunberger, letter to juge d’instruction, September 6, 1944, and Report, December 11, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V. Marcel Braunberger confirmed receiving a letter as well. Marcel Braunberger,
Audition
, December 8, 1944, also in carton n° V.

  9
she reported her husband’s disappearance
Report, March 26, 1946, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

10
The case was closed
Braunberger dossier, No. 95, 543 closed on January 9, 1943, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

  1
“The Mad Butcher” … “a swarthy, sinister-looking” United Press
, August 31, 1944.

  2
“He is only too real”
Ibid.

  3
“We have identified 54 victims”
Ibid;
Washington Post
, November 3, 1944. The
first part of this quote was also published by the
New York Times
, August 31, 1944.

  4
a twenty-nine-year-old Italian woman
Laetitia Toureaux is the subject of a fascinating new book by Gayle K. Brunelle and Annette Finley-Croswhite,
Murder in the Métro: Laetitia Toureaux and the Cagoule in 1930s France
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010).

  5
“hooded ones”
Maurice Pujo coined the term after the Ku Klux Klan. Bertram M. Gordon,
Collaborationism in France During the Second World War
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980), 58.

  6
Perhaps he had New York Times
, August 31, 1944.

  7
forwarded by attorney
Jacques Yonnet,
Audition
, November 7, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

  8
“Dear Mr. Editor” … “Having lost” Résistance
, October 18, 1944. Special thanks to Magali Androuin at the archives of the Préfecture de Police for showing me the original letter, which, given its state (ripped to pieces), is held outside the dossier.

  9
Colonel Rol Liberation-Soir
, November 4, 1944. For more on Colonel Rol’s life in general, see Roger Bourderon,
Rol-Tanguy
(Paris: Tallandier, 2004).

10
The first priority in the reckoning
Megan Koreman,
The Expectation of Justice: France, 1944–1946
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 92.

11
An estimated ten to twenty thousand women
Fabrice Virgili estimates twenty thousand in
Shorn Women: Gender and Punishment in Liberation France
(Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2002), 1.

12
A recent study
Jean-Paul Picaper and Ludwig Norz,
Enfants Maudits:
ils sont 200,000, on les appelait les “enfants de Boches” (Paris: Syrtes, 2004).

13
In all, about 310,000 cases
Philippe Burrin,
France Under the Germans: Collaboration and Compromise
, translated by Janet Lloyd (New York: The New Press, 1996), 459.

14
More recent studies
Henry Rousso, “L’épuration en France: une histoire inachevée”
Vingtième Siècle
no. 33 (January–March, 1992); H. R. Kedward put the number between 10,000 and 12,000 in
Occupied France: Collaboration and Resistance 1940–1944
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 77, and a few studies, returning full circle, place the figure higher. For more on the debate, see Christopher Lloyd’s first-rate
Collaboration and Resistance in Occupied France: Representing Treason and Sacrifice
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 39–40.

15
“stock market in a moment”
Douglas Porch,
The French Secret Services: A History of French Intelligence from the Dreyfus Affair to the Gulf War
(New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1995), 266.

16
France, he said, was using
René Nézondet,
Petiot “le Possédé”
(Paris: Express, 1950), 117.

17
At 10:45
Captain Simonin,
Arrest of Dr. Petiot
, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

18
as he punched his ticket
letter to Decaux, Alain Decaux,
C’était le xxe siècle: la
guerre absolue 1940–1945
(Paris: Perrin, 1998), 293, and asking for the time comes from an interview with one of the officers, in
France-Soir
, December 3, 1975.

19
“no longer sully the honor”
Jean-Marc Varaut,
L’abominable Dr. Petiot
(Paris: Ballard, 1974), 185.

20
The murder suspect carried
Captain Simonin, Report, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V; Commission Rogatoire, November 2, 1944, also in carton n° V.

21
“We believe we have fulfilled”
Thomas Maeder,
The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot
(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980), 155. See also the
Front-National
, November 3, 1944, and
L’Humanité
, November 3, 1944.

22
the DGER
The BCRA had become DGSS and then DGER in what Lucien Zimmer called a “ballet of initials” in
Un Septennat policier: Dessous et secrets de la police républicaine
(Paris: Fayard, 1967), 216.

23
He was later identified Résistance
, March 13, 1946. The article was written by Jacques Yonnet, the same journalist who penned the previous “Petiot,
Soldat du Reich.”
APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

24
“It’s unbelievable” … “To think that I have been alone”
Dylma interview in
L’Oeuvre
, November 3, 1944.

25
He was accused of four specific charges
Massu’s
Epuration
dossier, APP, KB 74.

26
“dining on several occasions”
Jean-Marc Berlière with Laurent Chabrun,
Policiers français sous l’occupation: d’après les archives de l’épuration
(Paris: Perrin, 2009), 141–142.

27
“the end of a rope” Commission Rogatoire
, November 2, 1944, the first of thirty-three identified items in his possession, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

28
suicide attempt … “anti-national act”
Berlière,
Policiers français
, 141, 145; Massu’s
Epuration
dossier, APP, KB 74.

29
“A good colleague”
Massu,
L’enquête Petiot
, 239.

30
“haunted the Palais de Justice” Télé Programme Magazine
, February 2–8, 1958, 4th year—N° 119, 7–9, translation by Stephen Trussel, December 2003. For more on Simenon and Maigret, see his excellent website,
trussel.com
.

31
“I took all my models”
Ibid.